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“Okay,” the little boy agreed, stifling a sob and wiping away his tears.

“What’s your name?” Steve asked.

“Brian.”

“Do you like cotton candy, Brian?”

The little boy nodded.

“Okay then, let’s get some.”

At the cotton candy stall, Steve bought two sticks of the gooey stuff, one for Brian and one for himself. As they strolled through the midway side by side, Steve kept an eye out for anyone who looked like a Cub Scout leader and also for anyone he knew. Fortunately he saw neither, and what could be more normal than two people, an older boy and a younger one, walking through a fairground in the semidarkness, both of them eating cotton candy?

“Here’s an idea,” Steve said, as they neared the place where he’d parked his pickup. “How about if I drop you off at the sheriff’s station here in town? You’ll be safe there. They’ll either take you home or call your mother to come get you.”

“Will I be in trouble?” Brian wanted to know.

“Nah,” Steve told him. “That’s what cops do. They look out for lost kids all the time.”

“Okay,” Brian said.

In the parking lot, Steve helped Brian climb up into the passenger seat. Once he closed the door, only the very top of Brian’s crew cut was visible through the window.

“So, you’re a Cub Scout?” Steve asked from behind the wheel.

Brian nodded. “A Wolf,” he answered. “Were you in Cub Scouts, too?”

Steve shook his head. “I wanted to but never did. Can I see your pin?”

“Sure,” Brian said. It took a moment for him to unfasten it and hand it over.

Steve made as if to examine it, then when passing it back, he dropped it onto the floorboard. Brian started to scramble down to find it.

“Just leave it there,” Steve advised. “It’ll be easier to find it once we stop.”

“Okay,” Brian agreed.

Clearly the day at the fair and the stress of being lost had worn Brian out. By the time they were headed north on Fertile’s main drag, the boy nodded off, with the remains of his ball of cotton candy stuck to the front of his shirt.

Needless to say, Steve drove past the sheriff’s station without slowing down. On the far side of town he turned right and headed northeast toward Arthur Lake. Before turning onto the dirt road nearest the lake, Steve doused the lights. As the car slowed, Brian awakened.

“Where are we?” he asked, looking around.

“It’s okay,” Steve said. “I just wanted to show you something.”

Afraid the boy might bolt, as soon as Steve turned off the engine, he grabbed Brian’s wrist. “Come on,” he said.

But Brian tried to pull away. “No,” he said. “It’s dark out there. I don’t want to go.”

“I said come on,” Steve repeated, forcibly dragging the boy across the seat.

“No,” Brian wailed. “I don’t want to. I want my mommy.”

“You can’t have your mommy,” Steve snarled. “You’re stuck with me.”

By the time Steve had the squirming kid out of the truck, it was all he could do to hang on to him as he walked the two hundred yards from where he’d parked to the edge of the lake, but somehow he managed. Steve knew Arthur Lake well. It was close enough to Gramps’s farm that he’d often gone swimming there alone on hotsummer days. On this occasion, he didn’t like having to walk into the water fully clothed, but with the kid fighting him tooth and nail, he didn’t have a choice.

The lake deepened gradually for the first twenty feet or so before a sharp drop-off. By the time Steve was waist-deep in the water, Brian had a death grip around his neck.